North Ridgeville Reef 72x36x24 eurobraced

No issues. The tank is 36" front to back so there is still a lot of space for it to swim. There is not a lot of live rock in my display so that also allows more room to swim. The guy I bought it from had it in a 20 gallon tank. It was more of a rescue actually. Also, I don't plan on any more fish so I think it will be fine. When he gets too big he will go to a new home.
 
It has been a long time since I have posted here. My tank has gone a bit of a crash due to a dosing pump I left on for a day and a half. It was my Alk pump which spiked my alk and salinity. I lost a lot of coral but no fish. I fixed everything and waited for change. Corals began to recover but still had poor growth and lots of algae. I increased water changes,ran gfo, gac, and decreased feeding with no improvement. Just for fun I decided to get a refractometer to check my hydrometer. I was very surprised to find that my hydrometer was 0.05 off in a bad direction. I was running my salinity at what I thought was 1.026 but was actually 1.031. Holy Swizzle Sticks Batman. Well, I was a little relieved to find something that could be contributing to all my problems.

This is going to be a documentation of what I hope is the growth of my tank to what I want it to be. Pictures to come.
 
Man that has to hurt when everything was going great. I am sure it will get better with time and patience. I will be in Ohio and would love to see your setup.


Wayne
 
Another setback:mad:. One of my monti'S that was encrusting on the bottom just started sluffing its tissue. Hasn't looked very good for awhile so I am not totally surprised, but I was hoping no to loose any more coral. I will get some pics today if I can. The other corals are still looking good.
 
I've had corals cycle in and out while others look fine. I wouldn't get too worried about it. Just check your levels to be sure that everything is up to par!
 
All my levels have been stable. I have been checking them every day as I am reducing the salinity. I have been worried about diluting everything and not just the salinity. I have another encrusting monti on th ebottom of my tank bleaching. I am thinking it may be a lighting isuue. The other sps and lps are still looking fine with new growth starting to show on some. The only coral that has showed new growth over the past few months has been my grape monti. That thing must be some kind of strong coral. I am almost afraid of how well it will grow in proper conditions. I will just keep watching.
 
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This is what my tank looked like December last year. A lot has changed but hopefully is now headed for something better.

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This is what it looks like today. All this loss from a malfunctioned alk pump followed by malfunctioning hydrometer. Tank is already looking better than a week ago. Here are some of my corals in there present state.

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Here is my soho.

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Here is an update. I have had my salinity stable for around 3 weeks. I am noticing some changes....duh. My chaeto is growing much faster now and is greener. My corals are showing new growth. I am noticing new coraline algae on the glass which all I saw for the last 5 months was death. I have also noticed my skimmer is much more stable with the water.

A lot of my snails had died so I added some new ones this weekend. 45 astria which are still alive.

My two monti's that had rtn are doing poorly. I fragged them which saved a small piece of both. I can't find ant reason for this happening.

I will get more pictures soon.
 
All my monti caps are looking bleak. The only one left is part of my purple cap/plating. The same thing that happened to the first two also happened to the purple one. I think it has finally stopped. It started with a white spot and then started bleaching. I gave it a day and then just fragged off the bad parts. Hopefully this is resolved. I can't find any bugs or any other reason. I am starting to wonder if this is a delayed effect of dropping my salinity too fast. Or maybe cleaning up the water too fast. I don't know. Anyways.

I got a new return pump this weekend. I finished hooking it up today. I replaced my dart with a panworld 200ps, which is like the blueline hd 70. I wanted to increase my flow and my dart wasn't enough. My friend got one of theses and wa running it from his basement to his kitchen and the flow was more than mine at 6 feet. Pump is working great so far. Flow is great and I actually had to cut it back a bit. I took pictures but my camera won't talk to my computer right now. :headwalls:
 
Fishmanstan: brown is fine...white is bad. If it is brown it will most likely recover. Monti's seem rot do everything slow though. Be patient.

Here are some pics...ugly ones. It has been very hard not to tear everything down and start over. I have decided I am going to just be patient. This is where am now:

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Still dealing with hair algae and some slime algae. Seems to be getting better though. I will be trying to keep up with my systems recovery here. Stay tuned.
 
Fishmanstan, what are you dipping them in? I thought I was through the bleaching but it is starting again and I definitely notice a brownish jelly looking substance initially.
 
SPotter, I am not exactly sure what my PO4 is. It always tests 0. I have some slime algae on my LR so I assume there is phospahate. I run GFO, skim wet, and I am adding a little vodka. Again, my acros are all looking very good. Good polyp extension and growth. Its just my monti's giving me a hard time.

I am really starting to think it is either light or infection. My water is noticably clearer and I assume I am getting better light penatration. I did change the type of lights I use from Radium to XM 15K's as well. I think it could be infection first because it happened all over the tank. It started with the Monti cap on the right, spread to a plating monti on the botom of the tank, then to my purple cap on the left side. I do have one piece of my purple monti in my frag tank, which is connected to the main system, that has been totally unaffected to this point.

Thank you for the questions, I really want to get to a cause.
 
I went to a new LFS and bought some new t5 bulbs. The brand is Wave Point and I got the Blue Wave color which they say is their super blue actinic 460. The bulbs are very blue and makes the colors glow. Now I wonder how long they will keep their color?

Montis are still not up to par. Acros are doing great. Polyps are reappearing on my tricolor and it is coloring up.

I cleaned all my powerheads and I noticed an increase in flow right away.

One concerning thing. I see a couple small white spots on my Red Planet. I may have bumped it while removing algae but I and anxious about every little spot I see. The polyps are fully extended which gives me hope that everything will be fine.

I also bought two cleaner shrimp. Partly because I like them and partly because I really wanted to put something new in my tank.
 
First off, I must say I am jealous of your tank and those dimensions. I dream about those exact same ones, with starphire and eurobracing. Congratz on owning such an amazing tank.

I had an orange cap recently start to RTN from the middle, and then suddenly stopped. No swings, no changes at all. Also, what kind of test kit are you using for phosphate?
 
dowtish, thank you! AGE did a great job on the tank. As for my test kit it was Salifert. I gave up testing for phosphate, now I just watch how quickly algae grows.

About these montis...I think I am learning that everything with them happens slowly but they don't show simptoms. They are sneaky. They look great and then they discolor and you have white spots. Then they don't recover for months. I love them though.
 
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